


Unflinching

by boxofwonder



Category: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Empty Vessel! Takumi, Gen, Niles understands a thing or two about being lost and scars, tags will be added as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofwonder/pseuds/boxofwonder
Summary: When the group captures the second prince of Hoshido, his mind fractured and lost in rage and revenge, an impulse decision makes Niles step forward to oversee his recovery.He never claimed to be one for wise decisions, after all.





	Unflinching

The days are long and the battles too few to keep thoughts at bay, and worse yet, that creeping feeling of _failure._

He has sworn to protect Lord Leo, with everything he has, until his dying breath.

So what good is a retainer yanked away from his liege, tossed into this entirely different castle? Niles took up arms, because there was no other, better purpose and he knows that there is a chance Leo may follow, there iss a chance _Corrin_ may follow -

(He had, just not the one Niles knew, just not the one who knew _Niles -_ )

But it is boggling, to be here. Being idle is a threat grander than blood and violence in a world that so easily threatens to unravel everything he believed to be true about life.

Every day Niles awakes, and finds comfort in the nightmares that grew more elaborate, but in their core, stay the same. His scars are a map assuring him he is still the same even in a world where he needs to carefully pull together the threads of his sanity every morning before he even gets dressed.

So many possibilities, and worlds, and times. Tales come to life without the grandeur they had been told with, people who had been lost in their own life greeted back into the arms of baffled loved ones. The same stories told in so many different ways.

It makes his head ache.

Niles finds peace in the heat of battle, because that is all the same - he almost never looks for a familiar rider casting with deadly precision anymore, and instead protects others, finds himself protected in turn, as well. The company isn’t bad, and he hasn’t lost his taste for flirtation.

Mead also tastes the same no matter where, as long as it is cheap and plentiful enough.

In the early days, Niles used to attend summonings. Staring at every red glow with a hunger and a hope that would burn him from the inside out with every disappointment more.

But he cannot be disappointed if he never hopes, so he stopped. Just - stopped.

Niles, of course, knows it doesn’t work that way. He feels it keenly, but he tosses himself into distractions, short-lived flings with anyone willing, and every dangerous and reckless mission that is being led.

That is how he meets the second prince of Hoshido, again.

 _Again_ because Niles made a point of annoying him in the hallways, the arrogant prince who sneers down at nohrian scum, and if that isn’t _everything_ Niles is. 

That happens, too, people arriving from different times, not always with their memories, not always with the same background. Niles has attempted to flirt with three different legendary mercenaries called Ike, and has been shut down by the same cunning mage every time. Something about his intellect resembles Leo's, perhaps that is why it's so irresistible to annoy him. 

Niles is almost never jarred by it anymore, but this version of Takumi chills him to the core. His body jerks as if fighting and surrendering every move, and the look in his eyes is both hollow and a raging forest fire, and all Niles can think of is the echoing screams that had shaken the barracks, and his own fears.

A queen of old, Celica, had been summoned with her mind fractured beyond recognition just recently, and it had taken its toll on all of them.

Niles thinks this scares him more than being lonely - the threat of seeing those he loves robbed of their memories, robbed of their soul. Even meeting Corrin from a different timeline, wielding a hoshidan bow that he had been taught to use by someone Niles did not know - even that was easier than the thought of watching Leo stumble in here with his first instinct being to get his hands on Niles’ throat.

He can take it from anyone in this world, but not his lord. Not him.

Still there is someting breathtaking to the way the Takumi they are facing moves, the rage he screams unchecked into the world. It’s the same wild madness that had lurked at the edge of Niles’ consciousness stronger with every passing day back on the streets, with every injury dimming his faith in the world. It’s the kind of rage born from despair and a bottomless pit inside a heart that eats greedily away at light and all the sweet things in life that sustain the carefree, the blessed.

The way Takumi fights makes Niles forget everything, because facing him down is thrilling. He fires in a way that leaves Niles breathless, _impressed,_ awestruck.

A beast unleashed that only hungers for blood. The archer is notoriously known for his skills in their land, but watching him fight with nothing left to lose - Niles feels alive watching the prince ravage the field around him, feels _excited_ in a twisted way, and in ways that he doesn't care to examine as he twirls and ducks and fires and watches the other fighters advance against the constant pour of new enemies.

It is a shame, a pity, that Niles is not the one to overwhelm and to capture him, in the end. That honour falls to Ike and Fjorm, two formidable warriors he has rarely seen so thoroughly struck by arrows and magic.

Kiran steps up from behind the line of fighters, and as they pass, Niles catches their gaze beneath the hood - intense, burning. He follows right on Kiran’s trail, barely feeling the way his skin was burned by magic. It is nothing a sweet healer would not love to fix for him, in a little while.

“What will we do?” asks Alfonse, gaze unwavering on Kiran as always. It’s a shame, really, he flushes so nicely at Niles’ advances, but his gaze will always be drawn to another, like a sailor looks to the brightest star to navigate a path onwards.

Kiran stays quiet, watchful gaze on the man writhing on the ground.

“I will _kill you -_ all of you -” Prince Takumi wheezes, restrained. But as bloodthirsty and powerful as he strikes, Niles knows to recognise someone who is lost, who has lost himself and his place in the world and has nothing left to lose. It is even more apparent from up close.

“Lady Celica is taking to the treatment well,” Sharena pitches in, her open face twisted with worry and sympathy. She reminds Niles so much of Corrin sometimes, that same hope burning within them, that same _belief_ in people. The kind of flame that takes so much bravery to keep alive in a war like theirs.

It’s what Niles loathed about Corrin, and learned to love the most.

“Lady Celica is surrounded by people who voluntarily took her into their care,” Alfonse replies, and his sister turns a horrified gaze on him.

“Are you saying we shouldn’t -”

“I think he is wondering who would take care of him when we take him along.” Kiran crouches low, and the prince jerks in his restraints, teeth snapping as if he’d bite like a dog if he had to, as well. He grunts in discomfort as the grip on him tightens, rope hastily fastened. They should have brought chains, but nobody had accepted something quite like this. Usually the spells on the heroes they recruit get broken, but this - this runs way deeper.

“Lady Sakura -” Sharena begins, and she cuts off. Even if the princess weren’t off on a mission, nobody would feel comfortable thrusting her murderous, possessed brother at her and expecting her to take care of him. Sharena bites her lip, and mutters: “Takumi himself?”

Kiran decidedly shakes his head. “We could not ask this of him without risking _his_ sanity, too.”

It’s an impulse, really. As so much in Niles’ life. It’s not even that there’s a special moment where his eyes meet the prince’s - he’s simply bored and lonely. Or that’s what he likes to believe, looking at someone who reminds him too much of everything he had been, before Lord Leo. Niles steps forward, shrugging. “I volunteer.”

All eyes present turn to him. The prince, meanwhile, curls up and mutters under his breath, voice waning and painfully broken. The war inside himself is one of likes Niles has never known, most of his scars at least showing on his skin, laced with those in his mind. A way to ground himself, and hold onto himself. 

“Are you certain?” Kiran asks, dubious.

“He is a prince of Hoshido -” Alfonse begins to explain, as if Niles is not fully aware.

“It will be all the more satisfying to put him in his place, then,” he replies, voice like velvet, enjoying the scandalised expression of the prince in turn -

But Sharena bursts towards him, hands grasping his elbows, her smile too bright and radiant, filling his vision. “Oh, thank you! You are too kind! I’m so happy you -” The pain is etched all into her face, her heart too kind for this world. Perhaps that is why Niles feels no need to correct her in assessing him as kind. Softness like hers recognises softness in turn, and what little of it he holds and hides he has no problem with letting _her_ see. “I cannot _stand_ to see him like this -” She sniffles now, and Niles can’t help it, he places a hand on her head.

She reminds him too much of Elise, in that moment. “It’ll all be fine somehow, but don’t expect any miracles.”

Alfonse makes as if to protest, object, but Kiran speaks before him: “It will be done.”

And so Niles becomes the caretaker of a fractured archer with skills that are a legend of their own right where they come from, and there is something uncomfortably close to fear inside him as he looks down at the broken man at his feet.

This will be an excellent distraction indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this existential Niles angst 'cause that was his life in my barracks, he's been with me since the beginning of the game and neither Leo nor Corrin blessed him. BUT THIS MORNING I PULLED MY FIRST LEO so I thought, gotta upload this, to celebrate.  
> Join me on my quest of getting every possessed hero a Support System. (Grima's fic is in work and Celica is already up lol.)


End file.
